BRAHMS, SCHUMANN / Batiashvili, Ott 4790086

[Brahms]: Batiashvili maintains a firm line and a sweetly singing tone throughout, again coaxing from Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden an intimate veil of sound, expressive and dreamily impassioned . . . . Batiashvili manages to impress her own stamp upon a performance that balances the intimate gesture with the heroic impulse.

Record Review /
Gary Lemco,
Audiophile Audition / 08. January 2013

. . . the artist delivers a Brahms Violin Concerto of great distinction. Hers is a forceful, direct reading defined more by refinement than size.

. . . this performance is lively and warm, partly thanks to Batiashvili [the concerto's electrifying soloist on this CD], who sets the dominant tone in her darkly sensuous opening line . . . throughout Batiashvili remains herself: less showy than some but deeply responsive to the music's inner workings and its colours. The range of hues summoned within her long phrasings is wondrously wide, each one delicately applied. The slow movement, the concerto's singing heart, is tender without being sentimental. And Batiashvili and Thielemann jointly triumph in the first movement's chief necessity -- keeping the scale epic and muscular while maintaining an intimate focus. Here is the sort of thoughtful reading that makes you fall in love with the concerto all over again . . . [in Clara Schumann's fetching violin and piano "Romances"] Batiashvili is brightly partnered by Alice Sara Ott.

Record Review /
Geoff Brown,
The Times (London) / 18. January 2013

. . . there is a tensile quality throughout. Speeds are well judged and the Dresden band play winningly. It was a brilliant idea to fill the disc with the Three Romances, Op 22 . . . Lush and poignant, they make one regret that Clara's career as a composer became subordinate to her husband's.

Record Review /
Stephen Pettitt,
The Times (London) / 27. January 2013

. . . very beautiful it sounds . . . The concerto is engrossingly done, with the first movement majestically shaped and the finale sensibly paced so that we appreciate its logic as well as her panache. And she does indeed play the Adagio like a declaration of love.

. . . a wide-ranging violinist . . . I don't think I have ever heard a performance of this concerto in which the orchestra figured like this. You listen to the opening bars and you notice the bassoons and the horns. From that point onward you're attending to the orchestra, and noticing details that were always there, but that you'd never paid attention to, because . . . well, a concerto is all about the solo part, right? Not so . . . . [Batiashvili] is a positive tiger in places. But she's willing to cede the spotlight, or at least share it. As a result, I found myself hearing things I hadn't noticed before: dialogues between soloist and woodwinds, or between soloist and strings, interactions that were scarcely there in performances where the soloist was it and the orchestra was at best a decorous backdrop. As you'll have gathered, part of this is simply balance. Batiashvili is enmeshed with the orchestra much more than most Brahms Concerto soloists are. You can hear very well everything else going on around her, and often the accompanying solo winds match her strength, while the brass are frankly beyond it. Yet the real genius of this performance is in putting this violinist, this orchestra, and this conductor together in the same hall. Batiashvili is a slender-toned sort of violinist . . . the silvery thread of sound is one of her specialties . . . As for Thielemann, I credit the balance to him, and it's brilliant. Batiashvili plays Ferruccio Busoni's cadenza in the first movement . . . and in this recording it's, I'd say, deliberately audible. The cadenza is wonderful . . . The slow movement is very fine . . . The finale has that slight rhythmic stickiness that belongs to Magyar music. It struts a bit, as it should. But then you hit that solo passage near the end, and suddenly you are, for a few bars, in solo Bach territory, sweetly and gently played. It gets a lot more raucous after that, but Batiashvili's deceleration in the final bars is the most elegant I've ever heard. She nearly evaporates before the orchestra caps her. The coupling is Clara Schumann's Op. 22 Three Romances for violin and piano, with Alice Sara Ott. I may say that this performance makes me want to go out and buy a copy of them. They are very like her husband's short instrumental pieces . . . I'm glad to have them, especially played this well.

Even before Lisa Batiashvili makes her entrance, we can sense this will be an outstanding performance of the Brahms. Finely balanced, spacious recording, with woodwind and horns well placed, highlights the fine orchestral playing -- solo lines projected but with the whole beautifully blended. And Christian Thielemann, in the first movement maintains the momentum of a true Allegro while giving the lyrical lines room to expand. Lisa Batiashvili, too, finds a wholly convincing equilibrium between her bold, passionate entry and the more reflective music that follows . . . In the finale, Batiashvili and Thielemann maintain a springy, joyful rhythmic impetus throughout . . . Batiashvili is forceful whenever she needs to be, while proving adept in finding moments of delicacy and playfulness. Batiashvili and Alice Sara Ott are splendid advocates for the Clara Schumann Romances bringing out all the changes in mood and character of these highly accomplished pieces . . .

Record Review /
Duncan Bruce,
Gramophone (London) / 01. April 2013

This is an outstanding performance of one of the most challenging concertos in the violin repertoire. Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili adopts decent tempi, instead of the sluggish speeds so many of her rivals favour: The work glows as a result.